How Do You Get Paid And Why Does It Matter?

As many of you know, the minimum thresholds, frequency of payments, and payment type made by affiliate networks can either attract or deter new publishers (affiliates). So it is safe to say that payment methods are an important aspect when choosing which networks to join and which to stay away from. They include direct deposit (ACH domestically), wire transfers (usually internationally), paper check, or in some cases, PayPal. There are positives and negatives, like anything else, concerning all these methods of payment. This brings up the important question, which method is better for the network (the payer), and which is better for the affiliate (the payee)?

The payers want to satisfy the needs of their affiliates, minimize their overhead costs, all while optimizing the speed of delivery time. This is not an easy task to accomplish, to say the least. The most popular way in delivering payments is direct deposit, or ACH, because it’s cheap and transfers relatively quickly. However, direct deposits do not satisfy international customers and many payees are reluctant to give up such classified information as their bank account and routing numbers. The other issue being any data errors results in highly expensive ACH reversal fees. A NOC request (notification of change) must be filled out and processed before a halt is put on the payment resulting in more time lost. Wires, another form of payment, are extremely expensive, both for the payer and the payee. Paper checks are another popular way to pay affiliates, but there are some real downsides to using them. Payers, who do thousands of these, have to lick, stamp, and send envelopes making it time consuming and relatively expensive. PayPal and similar companies charge varying fees for both parties at hand, nullifying it as an ideal solution for affiliate markets.

On the other hand, affiliates, or the payees, are not concerned with the cost to their employers. They want more money in their pocket more frequently. This means affiliates are attracted to the networks with the lowest thresholds and most repeated payments. A number as high as 60% say that the way in which networks fund their employees will influence their decision to join or not. So which payment method is the most beneficial to the recipient? Direct deposits are a popular choice because of the ease of locating funds and getting access to them. Wires satisfy the internationally affiliates but are only worth it if that affiliate is making a large sum of cash because of the high acceptance fees. Checks, the old-school method, have a slue of disadvantages to the payee. Let’s be honest here, most affiliates work with multiple networks. This means multiple checks at all different times of the month. They become easy to misplace and take time to clear (by no means instant money in their pocket). The other shortcoming to checks is that they can get lost in the mail requiring extensive manual tracking on the payees’ behalf. Again, PayPal charges fees either for the sender or acceptor deterring many from this system.

It seems there is no perfect payment solution that satisfies both the payer and the payee. Wrong; while doing the research for this article it has come to my attention that there is an ideal solution and their name is PayQuicker (www.payquicker.com). They can effectively lower networks’ thresholds while giving affiliates a faster way to receive money. This is possible through their one of kind free and global member to member service where funds transfer instantly. They combine this feature with that of competitively priced traditional banking methods to make a truly unique system. A pre-paid debit card is also available for those who want to use it. PayQuicker is completely free to join and has partnered with both domestic and international banks backed by the best security in the industry. Member accounts are FDIC insured up to $250,000. PayQuicker is PCI compliant and uses a “good funds” model to protect its clients. Located in Rochester, New York, PayQuicker has set the industry standard for online payments. Greg Shepard CEO of AffiliateTraction is quoted saying, “We find PayQuicker to be the least costly, simplest and most convenient option for affiliate payments–bar none.” PayQuicker has already been discovered by multiple industry leaders that are quickly starting to appreciate its benefits. This is an unbelievable system that is sure to change the way networks and their affiliates do business. I believe the use of this platform will completely eradicate any issues payers or payees are now having and save networks a heap of precious time and money while attracting new affiliates.

This is a guest post by Ryan Beldham from PayQuicker.com. If you want to guest post on this blog, please feel free to contact us.

SEO August 5, 2010

Congratulations. Your blog was selected as 1 of the few blogs feeding http://www.advertAgg.com, the ppc news aggregator. Expect more traffic to your site. If you have any problem with the selection of your blog to the site, do email me.

Of course how you get paid matters… we’re not doing this because we love going blind being online 15 hours a day we do it for the $$$$

This is a great article, but one of the things it left out is the fact that there is a ton of risk involved in fronting affiliates payments. TONS. Trust me lol.

Structuring a pay schedule that both accomodates the affiliates need for cashflow but also giving ample time to scrub for fraud and compliance violations gives a network the power to grow. Many networks get too aggressive with sloppy payments and find that if there is any gaps in the risk management process that affiliates will surely exploit them. Due to the very narrow margins on CPA offers these days even one scammer affiliate can wipe out a network.

There is also risk to the affiliate as well however, since for every affiliate scamming networks, there is a network trying to scam affiliates! Traffic is not free and when networks expect affiliates to wait 30-50 days to receive payments that opens the door to networks being able to run off with over a month of hard earned commissions.

That is why at CPATank we use the biweekly net 3 model which we feel reduces our risk since it in essence allows 17 days for fraud scrubbing and it simultaneously limits the affiliates risk exposure because the affiliate also only has ato wait 18 days to receive payments. Also, since we pay via PayPal and wire only, we reduce the amount of time affiliates have to wait for payments compared to waiting for a check in the mail which also helps improve affiliate cashflow.

At the end of the day it is all about risk and cashflow and finding a happy medium for all parties, oh yeah, and it’s about the money too 😉

I was approached by a representative from PayQuicker.com and I was given a demo/run-through of their service and I was very impressed. I’ll certainly be incorporating it as a payment method in the future for CPATrend.

Michael Burgess September 15, 2010

Roger April 5, 2011

I’m gonna be honest: I’m skeptical.
In the first place, this article is written by a guy who works in marketing for Payquicker, but yet his article claims, “…while doing the research for this article it has come to my attention that there is an ideal solution and their name is PayQuicker”. Think about that. While doing the research for this article, Payquicker “came to his attention”? If he works for Payquicker, what article was he writing before Payquicker came to his attention? And how exactly does your employer come to your attention? Come on. If you want me to look at something, especially something involving financial transactions, I need to feel good about its integrity. If this is a marketing piece, just tell me its a marketing piece. Trying to make it sound like an objective story about payment options in which the author just happened to stumble on Payquicker, when its clearly not so, only makes me suspicious of your integrity and puts a bad taste in my mouth before I’ve learned anything else about it.

Ryan worked for us as a summer intern in our PR department. He though that he was to prepare an article for the owner of the blog to post. The article was accepted as is and posted on behalf of Ryan. Clearly it could have benefited from some proof reading.

Victor January 16, 2012

Nothing new since August 2,010?
*Philip Shapiro said “I’ll certainly be incorporating it as a payment method in the future for CPATrend.” Up to-date CPA Trend has not implemented it yet (http://www.cpatrend.com/payment.php).
* John promised “I will let you know how my viral, social media marketing, campaign works out.” 1 and 1/2 year after his promise there are no news…